


too many light years (from you to here)

by SadieFlood



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27444286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieFlood/pseuds/SadieFlood
Summary: Holtzmann's plans evolve over the years, but one objective never changes.Rebecca takes a while to come around.
Relationships: Rebecca Gorin/Jillian Holtzmann
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2020





	too many light years (from you to here)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wonderwanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwanda/gifts).



1.

Jillian turns, waving a length of pipe aloft, as she crows, “Score!” 

Despite the fact that they’re sifting through their tenth and final dumpster of the weekend, she glows with the thrill of discovery. The day has been long, hot, and largely unproductive, but she doesn’t mind. Jillian adores scavenging, would stay out all night if someone weren’t there to insist on _food_ and _sleep_. 

Rebecca, conversely, feels like a cat who’s fallen into a mud puddle. 

She’s resisting the urge to wipe the sweat from her eyes with the back of a filthy glove, settling for pushing her glasses up her nose, when she notices that Jillian is still looking at her expectantly, clutching her treasure, waiting for a thumbs up or down. 

“Beautiful,” she says. 

Jillian nods, examining the pipe. She could be contemplating an invention, a weapon, or DIY plumbing repair. "I thought so, too.” 

She’d taken to Jillian as soon as it became clear that her self-preservation instincts would always take a back seat to exploration and discovery; that approach is familiar to Rebecca, she understands it, so she knows how to communicate with Jillian in a way that others don’t. The other professors, mostly men, look at Jillian and her unlimited potential with concern, but Rebecca is curious. Oddly protective, some might say, though not to her face.

The downside, of course, is the way Jillian looks at her, even knee-deep in a dumpster, which is trouble. From what she’s gathered in the relatively short time she’s known Jillian, there was a dearth of authority figures in her life who embraced her in her entirety. She’s singular. 

Well, almost.

Rebecca does her best to discourage the crush, but she does suspect that the drive to impress her might improve Jillian’s work, so she hasn’t explicitly told her to knock it off. Not yet.

“God,” Jillian says, “I wish I had five more just like this.” 

“Well, you’re not going to find them here.” She hoists herself to her feet, not without some difficulty. “Maybe next week.” 

“Delayed gratification is for dudes.” She might pout, but she doesn’t argue.

“Be that as it may, it’s getting dark, and I need a shower and a hot meal, and two or three consecutive hours of sleep.”

“You know I’m always up for a free meal," Jillian says. "You _are_ paying, right?"

"As always."

She hops out of the dumpster--oh, to be young--and holds out her rubber-gloved hand to Rebecca. “Milady.” 

“Doctor,” she corrects, and takes her hand. 

Jillian is surprisingly strong, and the support is a relief, but she holds on a little longer than strictly necessary. For a moment, Rebecca looks down at their joined hands. She avoids Jillian’s gaze entirely. 

She should give her the talk now, remind her that there's no room for infatuation here. But Jillian's not an idiot; she's just a provocateur.

So she says, “You know I hate being touched,” then rolls her eyes and drops her hand, and they go on as if nothing happened.

Because nothing did.

2.

Jillian graduates and her future is blinding, but then she puts a man in a coma, which causes her to lose CERN, and with it goes her will to live, to work, to sleep, to groom herself. She divides her time between her squalid little apartment and the hospital, until the man’s family tells her to stop visiting. Then she stops getting out of bed altogether. 

This cannot stand. 

There are things Rebecca could say: _It's not your fault. These things happen. He knew the risks. It could have happened to anyone. He's not dead. Yet._

Instead, she decides to offer Jillian a job. Off the books, but she'll arrange for a stipend. No assignments. No grades. 

"I don't think that's the _best_ idea you've ever had," Jillian says around a mouthful of pizza. For as long as Rebecca's known her, she's had a tendency to eat like she doesn't know where her next meal is coming from. After weeks of silence and listlessness, her voracious hunger seems encouraging.

"Of course not," she says. "But you need to rebuild your confidence in a safe environment, and I can provide that. You'd be a fool not to accept, and you're not a fool. Not when it counts, at least."

Jillian hesitates.

"You can't stay in that hovel you call an apartment forever."

"I just don't want to hurt anyone else." She pauses. "For example, you."

Rebecca waves a hand dismissively.

In response, Jillian finishes chewing her last bite, then lays her head directly on the table. 

Rebecca is not quite sure how to respond. Should she pat her back, tell her everything’s going to be all right? She doesn’t like to make representations that aren’t based on fact; what she would say is that everything probably _isn’t_ going to be all right, and you just have to live with it. 

But that wouldn’t provide any comfort.

So she waits.

Finally, Jillian stands up and holds out a hand, as if she's ready to close a deal.

She follows suit; Jillian pulls her into a hug instead, too tight and too long, but she doesn’t complain. 

Being touched can sometimes feel like a plucked guitar string reverberating through Rebecca's entire body, setting her teeth on edge. That feeling is more remarkable in its absence as Jillian buries her head against her shoulder; she only notices the warmth, the proximity of Jillian’s body against her own. 

“That’s enough,” she says stiffly, pushing Jillian away, back to arm’s length. A safe distance.

"Thanks, Doc." If her eyes are a little watery, Rebecca will do her the favor of not acknowledging it.

3.

The arrangement works about as well as expected.

Rebecca isolates her, gives her a problem to solve and free rein. Jillian practically tiptoes around the lab at first, but gradually she makes herself at home. After a couple of weeks, she's back to her old self.

Of course, it helps that Rebecca makes sure she doesn't have to see or speak to anyone who might bring up the incident.

The summer passes in a blur. Fall brings an influx of new students who draw her attention away, but by winter break they’re burrowed in together again, almost alone, day in and day out. 

Spring is almost over by the time Rebecca starts to wonder if she might be doing Jillian a disservice by allowing her to stay, not pushing her to pursue whatever it is she actually wants to do. 

Never mind that the schoolgirl crush she used to consider harmless has plainly escalated, and why not? Rebecca’s not her professor anymore, but it’s worse; now she’s her savior. Jillian is all limbs and nervous energy when she’s excited about something, and her sense of personal space, tenuous under the best circumstances, instantly evaporates when her mind and mouth are racing. Rebecca tries to draw boundaries, battle lines, to protect them both, but she’s not immune to distraction.

She would never, has never, would never _think_ of crossing that line. When she thinks of her own professors-- all men--and the way some of them behaved behind closed doors, she shudders to imagine that anyone might remember her like that, years from now. But she’s worked closely with students before, made them smarter or tougher or better, then sent them on their way, never to hear from them again until a recommendation letter was needed.

Not one ever lingered the way Jillian does.

The solution comes to her in the form of an old friend, dropping by for a drink and a chat, and whatever might come after that, as it usually does when Susan visits. She’s been ensconced in a government job for years, the type of position Rebecca would never have wanted for herself, let alone for Jillian.

But Jillian did want CERN, or what it represents. Validation. Acceptance. She supposes most people do want those things, so she tells Susan all about a former student who’s in need of a benevolent intervention.

“She must really be something,” Susan says, laughing. “You’ve spent I-don’t-know-how many years barely deigning to acknowledge my work, and now you’re thrusting a brilliant protege into my clutches?”

“I don’t claim to understand it, but she wants,” Rebecca says, “to be clutched.”

*

Jillian might as well have blinders on when she's working, and whatever's going on in her head must be very loud, because she doesn’t acknowledge Rebecca at all when she enters her work area. Usually she’ll at least offer some kind of inane greeting or innuendo, or an awkward combination of both.

Rebecca clears her throat.

No response. Just tuneless but intent humming. 

"Hey," she says, a little louder and sharper than intended.

Jillian startles, and it takes a second for her to focus on Rebecca.

"I have something to tell you. It's important."

She grins. "Wow, Doc. I was wondering when you'd come around. Your place or mine?"

"Be serious."

"When am I not?" 

"I've been talking to one of my former colleagues about you," she says. "She works in New Mexico now."

"Selling turquoise jewelry?" 

"Los Alamos.” 

Jillian doesn't react. 

“She'd like to interview you."

Dead silence. 

She starts to wonder if she’s done something wrong, but that’s absurd. Surely.

“In New Mexico?"

"The interview would be here in New York," she says. 

"But the job. That would be… 2,000 miles from here?"

Rebecca folds her arms. "The distance didn’t seem to bother you when CERN was still on the horizon.”

“That was a long time ago. I thought--things have changed.” She looks to Rebecca for confirmation.

Rebecca tries not to think about what she’s trying to say.

The light goes out of Jillian's eyes. “Uh, well, I _thought_ things had changed.”

She holds her ground. “Look, if this is the kind of position you want, Los Alamos would be a tremendous opportunity--”"

"I want," she says tightly, "to stay here."

"In New York."

"No. Here," she repeats.

Rebecca raises an eyebrow. "Right here. Forever?"

"Maybe."

"Jillian, you can't stay in this lab for the rest of your life," she says.

"You know, I actually am starting to get that.” She starts slamming around the meager items that could be described as "her things." "I've overstayed my welcome. _So_ gauche. I’ll get out of your hair."

"This isn’t the kind of opportunity that’s going to come up again.” You don't have to go right now, she doesn't say.

"And I truly, sincerely, 100 percent thank you," she says. "But no thank you. Goodbye, Dr. Gorin. Thanks for everything. Well, except the tremendous opportunity."

Rebecca still isn’t sure she knows where it all went wrong. 

Jillian stops in front of her, staring her down, and she almost opens her mouth to speak, but by the time she starts to say something, anything, Jillian launches herself forward and upward, pressing her lips against Rebecca's for one, two, five, ten seconds. 

"I quit," she says.

4.

Rebecca doesn't see Jillian again until she's on television, being discredited as a fraud. 

Hunting _ghosts_? 

Not exactly a government job; something swells inside her, which she decides must be pride. Being discredited by the mayor’s office can only mean Jillian and her co-workers are on to something.

She wonders if she should call and congratulate her.

On what? Putting her skills to good use?

She supposes she could apologize.

For what? Trying to help her? Pushing her out of the nest?

No. She won’t call. 

When ghosts invade Manhattan, Rebecca's at a conference halfway across the world. By the time she’s back in town, the mayor is trying to sell a story about a mass hallucination. 

Jillian must have saved the city. 

"This is Dr. Rebecca Gorin," she tells Jillian's voicemail. "I heard about your recent exploits on the news, and I just wanted to say..."

She pauses.

"Good for you," she says, a little softer. "You made it." Without me, she doesn't say. "If there's anything--well, my number hasn't changed."

She’s not surprised when the call doesn't come. 

*

However, she is surprised at the knock on her door, two weeks later, well past midnight.

"Good god, woman, learn to text," Jillian says. "Do you listen to _your_ voicemails?"

"Of course.” 

"You've got to step into the 21st century.” 

Words fail her.

“Can I come in? I don't want my fans to see me on the street. Or you in your pajamas," Jillian says. “Although they are _very_ cute. Are those cats? I didn’t take you for the type.”

She stands back to let Jillian pass. "That's right, you're a celebrity now."

"I prefer to think of myself as infamous." Jillian walks around her living room, examining the spine of every book, peering into her tea mug, picking up every photo on her mantle. “You know, as long as I’ve known you, I’ve never been in your home. You’ve been to mine.”

“Just once,” she points out. The afternoon she’d dragged Jillian from her mattress on the floor, forced her to shower, dress, brush her hair, and go out for pizza, then offered her a job. “That wasn’t exactly a social visit.”

“Social,” Jillian repeats, and then she’s silent for a long while. 

Rebecca resists the urge to apologize. For what? 

“I’ve been trying to get better at saying what I mean,” she says, blowing the dust off a framed photo of Rebecca's father. “It’s funny, working around death is not something I ever imagined for myself, but it’s really made me think about telling people what I want them to know while we’re all still alive, because trying to move the planchette on a Ouija board takes way too long, spelling out every single letter, and then in the end you’re just like, ‘wait, did _you_ move it, or did I?’”

“Jillian,” she says. “It’s late.”

“You’re telling me." She sets down the photo. "Well, as you know, I never really made friends in school, not real ones, and I don’t really have much of a family anymore. And now I have friends who are my family. I never imagined that, either.”

Rebecca cracks a smile. “You thought you’d end up like me.”

“Not _like_ you,” Jillian says. 

She knows what’s coming next, and opens her mouth to stop it, out of habit. 

“You know, everyone calls me Holtzmann now. Holtz for short. Holtzy, if they’re feeling saucy. My friend Patty, she’s almost always feeling saucy.”

“I’m not everyone,” she says.

“I know that. You think I don’t know that?” She clears her throat, too loudly. “Anyway, I was surprised to get your message.”

“I was surprised to see you on television.”

“Was it a good surprise? I thought you might be mad at me.” The open vulnerability Rebecca expects to see in her face is gone, replaced by something akin to defiance, or confidence.

"You found your own path," she says. "I’m not mad at you. I’m thrilled."

Jillian runs a hand through her hair. "That's not exactly what I meant. I don’t know if you remember," she says, “but I was a little dramatic when I quit that job you created for me.”

“Dramatic,” she echoes. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I’m learning to use my words.”

She should say: _Well, good night. Good luck. Call if you need a recommendation letter._ Instead, she says, “Where do you keep the ghosts, once you bust them?”

Jillian breaks into a wide smile. “I would _love_ to show you. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” she confirms.

“Fantastic. It’s a date!” 

She’s out the door and halfway down the street before Rebecca can object.

5.

The city lights up with a _thank you_ to the Ghostbusters, and Jillian bounds downstairs like an overgrown puppy. “It’s pretty amazing up there. Want to see?”

“No,” she says. “We didn’t finish our conversation about this--”

Jillian grabs her elbow and says, “All work and no play makes you something, something… I don’t know how that ends. But we can work on this tomorrow. Let’s get pizza. Like old times. Your treat.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Rebecca says, but she allows Jillian to pull her along, back through the fire station, past her friends, out the door, onto the sidewalk. “If you ask someone out, you’re supposed to pay.”

“But you’re a tenured professor, whereas I am… not,” she says.

“Well, whose fault is that?” Rebecca pulls off her gloves. “I guess I can spring for a slice. This time.”

“And a Coke?”

“Absolutely not. Rots your teeth and your stomach lining.”

“Yeah, that’s the fun part.” She stops in her tracks. “Am I hallucinating, or did you just acknowledge that I asked you out? And that we might go out a second time, at which point I would be expected to pay?”

“I mean, you saved the city. It’s the least I can do.”

“Huh,” Jillian says, turning it over in her mind. “What’s the _most_ you can do?”

Rebecca leans down and kisses her for one, five, ten, twenty, forty seconds, a minute. “Thank you, Holtzmann.”

Jillian is dazed for a moment before she says, “You know, I don’t think I like it when you say it.”

“Good. I didn’t like saying it.”

“I have a brilliant idea,” Jillian says. “What if we skip the pizza for now and go to your place, and you put on those cat pajamas again? I’ve been thinking about them, like, non-stop.”

Rebecca shakes her head. “I'm old-fashioned. I listen to voicemails. You’ll have to wine and dine me first, and even then, no promises.”

“I definitely do not have enough cash on me for wine,” Jillian says. “But I am an incredibly patient person. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that about me.”

“I have.”

Jillian smiles up at her. “What’s the worst that could happen?” 

There are so many possible outcomes, each more catastrophic than the last, and she’s spent so much time carefully considering each one over the years. 

“Actually, you know what, don’t answer that. What’s the _best_ that could happen?”

That’s a much smaller list, and one to which she hasn’t yet devoted much thought. 

She doesn’t try to choose. 

Instead she takes Jillian's hand and says, “Let’s find out."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Sam Phillips song of the same name.


End file.
